


yet we will make him run

by gnx (LiesArePartiallyTrue)



Category: And I Darken Series - Kiersten White
Genre: F/M, Jealousy, Short, happy fucking ending fuck, set after now i rise jsyk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 20:30:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13325931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiesArePartiallyTrue/pseuds/gnx
Summary: "And she did not and would never love Bogdan as she had Mehmed, which was both a relief and an agony." - Now I Rise.





	yet we will make him run

**Author's Note:**

  * For [black_winged_traveller](https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_winged_traveller/gifts).



> hi my heart is wrecked after now i rise is yours 
> 
> (this is mostly self-indulgent but also for my friend k. bc she is a saint and loves me a lot)
> 
> (also gimme my radu/cyprian <33)

_And she did not and would never love Bogdan as she had Mehmed, which was both a relief and an agony._

So she did not love him as she had Mehmed. Theirs had been a selfish love, because Mehmed had promised her a throne and men, and _that he would keep her brother safe_ , but he had delivered nothing, only a strange, damnable craving in her, and an empty promise of the title 'empress'. In the end, he had loved Constantinople more than her, and Lada would not begrudge Wallachia to anyone.

Wallachia was hers. And Bogdan was as Wallachia, more Wallachian than her brother, yet both less and more than that to her. 

She did not allow herself to dwell much on it, yet Bogdan made that difficult - he was near constantly, always a steady rock in a stream, a warmth to her in an empty castle. 

Lada had picked a few girls from the camp that had followed her and her men on the way to Târgoviște as maids for the castle - because Oana had said it needed doing, not because she'd have ever thought of it herself. They were most of them wary of her men, even as they were mainly, with Petru ever the exception, entirely respectful.

Yet one in particular, pretty of face and light of hair, had taken a liking to Bogdan, as it seemed, for it would not be a minute that he had walked into a room that the twirling of the girl's skirts could be heard at the servants' door. His hulking size seemed not to deter her, if anything, to draw her in, and she would follow and try to speak with him anywhere she could.

Bogdan, of course, noticed nothing. He belonged to Lada, had eyes only for her, and even his mother he had sought out firstly because he thought Lada would have need of her. Lada did not doubt his loyalty as she did not doubt the cycle of the sun - it simply _was._

But as she looked at the girl unsuccessfully bat her lashes at him, something gnawed at Lada each day. This was her Bogdan, _hers_ , what more claim did she need than the scar on his palm that marked him her husband, not to gain power through like Hüma, the Valide Sultan, but to _have_ and to _keep_? And was Bogdan not more familiar to her that any map? What else must she do, that the world may know him as hers and fear her wrath? 

And so on an evening spent in the men's barracks, when the girl had tried to sneak in word with Bogdan in exchange for a new skin of wine, Lada had been fed up. 

She tired of having her things taken from her, and she would not let any rob her of her possessions any longer. And she knew what she had to do to show Bogdan that she owned him - that she cared for him. 

She grabbed his jug-handle ears and tugged him into a rough, possessive kiss, for all to see. He wasted no time before responding to her, attuning himself to her, as he always had and always would do, and her men gave wine-bolstered cheers. 

When they pulled apart, in his dark eyes she could read the Wallachian forest, illuminated by dawn's light on the mountain peak from her childhood. 

Bogdan did not make her go wild with need like Mehmed, but it was just so, because she did not want to _need_ anything. She would belong to no man, would not be conquered, and Mehmed, damn him, had tried. 

She would not give her heart away again. But that did not mean she could not still love. As in all things, she would find her own way, with Bogdan always by her side.

**Author's Note:**

> *also excuse the alteration in some spellings there, my lil slavic heart just could not™


End file.
